Hats and Tats: A Lifestyle

This is a daily tally of all the New Era caps I own, wear and pay tribute to the long history of teams and players who have donned the cap before me. Almost every hat I own has a special marking recognizing players, stats or special events within the history and era of the team and style I sport. It's a mix of fun and history as presented through my eyes and mind because I love the game so much, and wish to honor those who have played before as I cheer for those of the present.

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Where did the time go? As crazy as it sounds, it’s been 381
days since my last blog post, and to be honest, I feel like I’ve cheated a lot
of you for it. Over the last year my life took some incredible turns, all of
which were certainly for the better. For starters, I’m back where I belong in Oakland, California.
The last time I had been fortunate enough to call this city (area) home was
when back in 1985 at the ripe age of two-years-old. And as unbelievable as this
may sound, I still remember the mornings waking up to the sound of traffic
rolling by on I-580 and the cool crispness of the air wafting through the open
window of my bedroom. Anytime I came back to visit my grandparents, roll
through on a family vacation or even just drove down on a random weekend while
I was attending the University of Oregon, a feeling of unexplainable joy always
washed over me as if I had just returned home from a long journey. To those of
you who I have become closer friends with over the last year, I am truly
grateful. You have all made Angie and my important decision to truly start our
lives together the best we could have made. And for that, this is probably the
biggest reason why I needed to restart my blog. Thank you.

As candid as I was throughout the first 225 or so posts
speckled throughout 2013, I feel this is as good of any time to be perfectly
frank and explain why it’s taken me so long to get back to this thing that I
love to do so much. I guess for starters I should point out what I actually
accomplished in 2013 with my blog and the articles I compiled for eDraft
Sports. First the blog. I know I’ve pointed this out in a few of my posts, but
my overall mission was to form a habit of writing every single day. When I had
started my posts they were roughly 2-3 pages long and they primarily comprised
of just the history of the hat and the numbers I marked them up with. As time
wore on I felt more and more comfortable opening up and telling a bit of my own
personal history of my relationship with baseball and the caps and players I
was paying tribute to. As soon as that kicked in my stories became 8-10 page
biopics. Therefore, if you break down he numbers to, let’s say, seven pages per
post times 225 posts you’ll get 1,575 pages. Now, let’s say that the average
book is about 275-300 pages and then divide that into what I wrote and you can
essentially say that I wrote the equivalent of a little over five books. Crazy,
right!? But we’re not done yet. Like I said, I also write for eDraft, which
came out to be 125 articles at roughly 2-3 pages in length. So, do the math
again, three pages times 125 articles equals 375 pages, or another book to
boot. The fact of the matter is that I burned out. I’m willing to bet that I
had written more in that year than in all of my other years combined. As
selfish as it was for me to take a break, I really needed it.

One thing that I should also point out is that around the
time when I stopped writing a post every single day (June 13, 2013), I had a
bit of an “oh shit!” moment when I realized that I didn’t have neatly enough
hats to complete the year. Even though I was doing my best to increase my
numbers with what little money I had, I knew there wasn’t going to be any
possible way for me to hit that mark unless I elected to start blowing dudes on
the streets of Portland
for the cash. This was not going to be my legacy. Instead, I tried pacing and
spacing my stories out a bit more until life became a bit too crazy and I need
to focus more on the move and finding a stable job. Long story short (too
late), I have three great jobs, two of which are with my favorite baseball team,
the Oakland Athletics, the other is with one of my favorite hat retailers, Hat
Club; and most importantly, I’m in the city I love with all of my friends and
the woman I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. And now, you get to read
more about all the crazy shit that led up to this moment and every adventure
that comes next. Y’all are in for treat.

It was a bit of a struggle to figure out which hat I was
going to write about, as I obviously have a pretty decent score of stories and
caps to shuffle through now. However, there is one problem that arose a few
months ago which my affect things a bit. The phone that I had won in the MLB Fan
Cave and toured around
the country with, taking every photo over the last two years, died and I can’t
quite figure out how to get the photos off. So, until I can find/hire someone
with the appropriate nerdery levels, we’re all a bit screwed on that one. So, I
decided to roll with one of my most recent cap purchases which also carries
along one of my favorite moments of the 2014 season. At this moment I don’t
even know why I threw in a bit of build up, you obviously knew which cap I was
going to write about based on the photo and title above. Gaaaaahhhhh!!!

Anyway, back on September 7, 2014 the New York Yankees
debuted this cap during the final day of a three-game series against the
eventual American League champion Kansas City Royals, a contest the team would
lose 0-2 with Jeter going 1-3 with a walk. Not exactly the best of days;
however, the real victory on the day was the cap itself. For those who don’t remember, September 22, 2013 was the
first time a patch commemorating the career of a player had been worn on a New
Era Cap, and that honor was bestowed upon Yankee closer, and future Hall of
Famer, Mariano Rivera.

Back then the Yankees wore this patch for the final four
games of their home stand against the San Francisco Giants and the Tampa Bay
Rays. Being the ardent oppositionist of side patches (at the time), I declined
to purchase this cap, and believe me, it’s been biting me in the ass ever
since. The one downside of this occasion was that the Yankees never maintained
a lead for Rivera to get one final save with this on his head. Instead, the
Yankees brought him out of the bullpen in the seventh inning of their final
home game (September 26th) with one out and let him go 1 1/3 before
Jeter and Andy Pettitte came in to take him out of the game, one the finer
moments in the history of the organization.

So presumably, not wanting to face
the same issue as with Rivera, the Yankees elected to use the Jeter patch for
their final home games of the season.

From a business aspect I really can’t blame the Yankees or
New Era for doing this. As simple of a tribute as it is, it’s also an
incredibly ingenious marketing campaign for die hard Yankees fans, cap
collectors or even casual baseball fans. Hell, I broke down and bought it, and
it wasn’t exactly easy. For starters, Hat Club started carrying it in the
middle of September, so I of course requested one for myself and a few of my
co-workers. The one thing I didn’t really expect was that so many of the
customers (non-Yankees fans) would come in asking for one. Being the good guy
that I am I offered the one I had on hold to anyone who came in looking for
that size, something I do for any cap that I put on hold. There are two reasons
that I do this: it’s good for business and it’s the right thing to do, both
have the same end result in that I can easily get another one. What I wasn’t
expecting when I sold it is that I would have to wait an additional two months
for the store to get more in. But, here we are.

Now, there are two stories that I need to tell with this,
one of which I already did back on June 16, 2014 for eDraft. As much as I feel
it would be more appropriate for my blog to just hammer something out, the
reality is that I am incredibly proud of what I already wrote. I rarely take
pride in my own work, but this once was especially important to me to do a
great job at. The second story is about the marking I put on the cap, something
I will never forget for as long as I continue to follow this amazing game.

It almost seems
fitting to start with this moment as it took place 25 years and two-and-a-half
weeks ago. It was May 29, 1989; a six-year-old boy from California
watched one of his baseball heroes sobbingly announce his retirement from the
game he loved during a press conference in San Diego. That player was Philadelphia Phillies’ Hall of Fame third
baseman Mike Schmidt, a player who I had grown a great affinity for through my
older brother Adam who had been following and idolizing Schmidt since before I
was born. I didn’t really know it or understand it at the time, but that was the
first moment I can pinpoint when I witnessed one of the game’s greatest players
call it quits. As the years wore on and my love for baseball grew, I saw more
of my heroes (Gary Carter, Eddie Murray, Nolan Ryan, Robin Yount, Paul Molitor,
etc.) lose the magic they once exemplified as their time to walk away from the
game came to fruition. Looking back on all of those names and dates, it almost
feels like a dream as the majority of these guys had their best years long
before I was old enough to comprehend what I was watching or before I was even
a thought in my parents’ minds. For the time that I was lucky enough to be
given, even to see most of the greats in their broken down years, I am truly
grateful to say that some time somewhere, I saw them play.

1995 was an especially
trying year for baseball fans. An overwhelming majority felt jilted by the
players, owners, the powers that be for Major League Baseball and especially
former executive director of the MLB Player’s Association Donald Fehr after the
player’s strike of 1994 cancelled the remaining two months of that season as
well as the playoffs which potentially could have pitted the lowly and now
defunct Montreal Expos against the New York Yankees for what could have been
longtime Bronx favorite Don Mattingly’s first trip to the postseason. As
disheartening as it was to most fans to finally feel and see the dollar sign
pressed into their faces, there were a few memorable moments to take away from
the ’95 season: Cal Ripken, Jr. broke Yankee legend Lou Gehrig’s consecutive
games played record on September 6th, the Atlanta Braves won their
only World Series title with the likes of soon-to-be Hall of Famers Greg
Maddux, Tom Glavine and Chipper Jones, and on May 29th, six years to
the date after Schmidt gave his tearful goodbye to the game he loved, a
20-year-old kid from Kalamazoo, Michigan donned the Yankee pinstripes for his
first game in the Majors.

##Derek Jeter## was
born in Pequannock Township, New Jersey but
was later moved to Michigan where he played his
high school ball at Kalamazoo
Central High
School. Between his sophomore and senior years
Jeter hit .524. During his senior year he clubbed four home runs, drove in 23
runs, swiped 12 bags in 12 attempts and only struck out once. The folks at the University of Michigan didn’t hesitate to offer Jeter
a full ride scholarship. Nor should they have. That season (1992) Jeter went on
to win the Kalamazoo Area B'nai B'rith Award for Scholar Athlete, the 1992 High
School Player of the Year Award from the American Baseball Coaches Association,
the 1992 Gatorade High School Player of the Year award, and USA Today's High School Player of the
Year. The only thing keeping Jeter from moving on to the college ranks was the
lure of making big bucks in the Majors, something two teams, the Yankees and
the Houston Astros, were willing to shell out if they were able to draft and
sign him.

As a scout for the Houston Astros, Hal Newhouser, a Hall of Famer in 1992 and
Michigan
native, evaluated Jeter extensively prior to the 1992 Draft. The Astros held
the first overall pick and Newhouser, convinced that Jeter would anchor a
winning team, lobbied team management to select Jeter. However, the Astros
feared that Jeter would insist on a salary bonus of at least $1 million to
forgo his college scholarship for a professional contract. Consequently, the
Astros passed on him in the draft, instead choosing Cal-State Fullerton
outfielder Phil Nevin, who signed with Houston
for $700,000. Newhouser felt so strongly about Jeter's potential that he quit
his job with the Astros in protest after they ignored his drafting advice. The
Yankees, who selected sixth, also rated Jeter highly. Yankees scout Dick Groch,
assigned to scout in the Midwest, watched Jeter participate in an all-star camp
held at Western Michigan University.
Though Yankees officials were concerned that Jeter would attend college and
forgo the opportunity to sign a professional contract, Groch convinced them to
select him. Regarding the possibility that Jeter would attend Michigan,
Groch said "the only place Derek Jeter's going is to Cooperstown.”
The second through fifth picks were Paul Shuey, B. J. Wallace (who never played
in the majors), Jeffrey Hammonds, and Chad Mottola (125 career MLB
at-bats and over 5,000 at-bats at AAA); those five would combine for a grand
total of 2 All-Star Game appearances (Nevin and Hammonds). The Yankees drafted
Jeter, who chose to turn professional, signing for $800,000. And the rest, as
they say is history. Well, there’s a little more to it than that.

When Jeter made his
debut in 1995 he only played in a total of 15 games as an occasional
replacement for Tony Fernandez. Despite hitting .250 (12 hits in 48 at-bats)
and knocking in seven runs, the Yankees left him off of their postseason
roster. The three things to note from the Yankees making the playoffs this year
with their 79-65 record are these: the Yankees were the first American League
team to win a Wild Card spot, this was Mattingly’s first and only trip to the
playoffs and the Yankees upended by the Seattle Mariners in Game Five which is
still considered one of the most memorable playoff games in MLB history. But
what happened for the Yankees after the American League Division Series ended
is truly what makes Jeter… well, Jeter and the Yankees the most hated team in
North American sports.

In 1996 the Yankees
stopped “fooling around” by firing then-manager Buck Showalter and replacing
him with Joe Torre. George “The Boss” Steinbrenner and his General Manager Bob
Watson began making key signings to the likes of eventual Hall of Famer Wade
Boggs and Cecil Fielder, but most important they made sure Jeter stayed up at
the top level. That season Jeter easily won the AL Rookie of the Year Award
with a .314 average, 183 total hits, 78 RBI, 10 home runs and 104 runs scored.
And then of course that was that whole winning the World Series thing, the
team’s first since 1978, but that really wasn’t that big of a deal. What was a
big deal was when Jeter and the Yankees went on to win the Series every year from
1998-2000, becoming the first three-peat champions since the Oakland Athletics (1972-1974). Unfortunately
for Jeter and the Yankees, the new millennium wasn’t as prosperous as the
previous as they would only go on to win one World Series title (2009) in the
three trips they made (2001, 2003 and 2009). Regardless, a five-ringed Jeter in
his 20 years of service is still pretty remarkable, and I haven’t even really
scratched the surface of the individual feats he accomplished.

In 20 seasons,
including his 15 games in 1995, Jeter’s lifetime average currently sits at
.312, which based on the math and at-bats means that the only way he’ll finish
with a sub-.300 average is if he goes hitless in his next 430 at-bats. Do you
have any idea how hard that would be for a player of his caliber? Moving on;
from 2004-2010 Jeter won five Gold Glove Awards. It could have been more had it
not been for the likes of Omar Vizquel owning the 1990s when it came to superb
infield defense. As of now Jeter has been an All-Star 13 times, but it is more
than likely that he will make his 14th appearance this next month in
Minnesota. As trivial as the All-Star Game may seem in regard to stats, Jeter
actually has/had a distinctive mark in the record books. Even though the
All-Star Game has been played since the 1933 season, the MVP Award didn’t
become a thing until 1962. Even stranger, until Jeter won the MVP Award at the
2000 All-Star Game behind his three hits and two RBI, no Yankee had won the
award previously. On top of that, no player had won the All-Star Game MVP and
the World Series MVP in the same season until Jeter did it that season, and no
player has done it since. But I think the most remarkable accolade that Jeter
has not yet gotten his mitts on has to be his lack of a season MVP Award, the
closest of which he came in 2006 with a career-high .343 average, 214 total
hits, 118 runs scored, 14 home runs, 39 doubles and 97 RBI. Who did he lose to?
Justin Morneau, by the thinnest of margins (three first place votes). Jeter
also holds the Yankee record for most games played at 2,661 as of June 15,
2014, which is 260 games more than the next closest, Mickey Mantle.

You know, in all of
this Jeter talk I feel like I’m forgetting something… Oh yah!.. that whole
3,000-hit thing. I saved this for last on purpose because it carries a lot more
weight than most fans realize. In the history of Major League Baseball there
have been only 28 players of the scores who have played the game to reach this
milestone. Of the 28, only four remain out of the Hall of Fame: Jeter, Peter
Rose (of course), Rafael Palmeiro (a self-inflicted tragedy) and Craig Biggio
(which makes absolutely no sense). Of those 28 players only Boggs and Jeter
have notched their 3,000th hit on a home run. Of the 28, I’ve been
lucky enough to watch 12 of them hit number 3,000. Of the 28, Jeter is the only
member of the Yankees to accomplish this feat. This stat in particular is truly
the most mind-boggling especially when you look back on all of the great
hitters who have donned the pinstripes since they were first added to the
uniform in 1912. The next closest Yankee, and when I say this I mean they
played their entire career with the Yankees, is Gehrig at 2,721. Even though
##Ichiro Suzuki## is only 219 hits away from 3,000 himself, his number would
not count in the Yankee record books in the same light of what Jeter has
accomplished and is still adding to.

Despite all of the
awards, the accomplishments and the fruit baskets he’s dished out over the
years, the one thing (maybe two) that comes to mind when one has to think of a
defining moment throughout his career that future generations can get a rough
understanding of his greatness came on the night of October 13, 2001 in the
bottom of the seventh inning of Game Three of the ALDS. At this point I’d
really like to break the fourth wall and establish something that is very
important to what has been read and what will continue to be read: I’m and
Athletics fans, just in case you didn’t know that already. I bring this up
because up until this point I feel I’ve done a fair job of capturing and
presenting an unbiased retrospect on Jeter’s career. Had a Yankee fan written
this, there may be a bit more embellishment. Had a Boston Red Sox fan written
this you’d probably see a lot more blathering; however, the one thing that is
FOR CERTAIN is that with the exception of the Baltimore Orioles, there is not a
single fan base that has a legitimate reason to hate Jeter, let alone the
Yankees, as much as Athletics fans do. Red Sox fans, you have three World
Series title in the last ten years, shut it. Orioles fans, your real beef
should be with Jeffery Maier and the shoddy right field umpiring work of Richie
Garcia. But for this moment, the moment that defines Jeter as “The Captain,”
Athletics fans will always have a sour taste in their mouths. “The flip,” as
it’s come to be known occurred with two outs in the bottom of the seventh
inning with Jeremy Giambi on first base, Terrence Long at bat and the Yankees
holding on to a 1-0 lead which came via solo home run by Jorge Posada in the
top of the fifth inning. The other important thing to know is that the
Athletics were up 2-0 in the best of five series having beaten the Yankees in New York. Anyway, with a
2-2 count Long ripped a sure double down the right field line and Giambi did
what he could to peddle around the bases. Off of a whim, then-third base coach
Ron Washington decided to send Giambi home. Then-right fielder Shane Spencer
tossed the ball from deep-right field into the infield, which barely made it
beyond first base. At some point Jeter took quick note that the ball wasn’t
going to make it home to Posada so he took action into his own hands by running
over to the first base line to retrieve it and flip it to Posada. Giambi, for
whatever reason, opted to keep running as opposed to sliding. In the end,
Posada got the ball from Jeter, made a swipe tag and home plate umpire Kerwin
Danley made the punch out call. Most Athletics fans you talk to are still
convinced Posada didn’t apply the tag. Regardless, the out call was made, the
Yankees won that game 1-0 and eventually came back to win the series in five
games. The aftermath was then made into a book and eventual film called
Moneyball, you may have heard of them. From that moment on, like a lot of my
fellows Athletics fans, I hated Jeter (as a player).

As a now employee of
the Athletics I am lucky enough to have access to certain facilities and
section of the Oakland
Coliseum. While I cannot and will not discuss what my actual job is, the one
thing I can tell you is that I found myself face-to-face with Jeter before his
final game in Oakland.
It’s been almost 13 years since that damn play and I have long since gotten
over it, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t still think about it. After he took
some swings in the batting cage my co-worker and I were fortunate enough to be
able to say a few words with him before he headed out into the field. The only
thing that I could muster out; really, the only thing that mattered was to tell
him, “thank you for a brilliant career.” In response, he looked me in the eye
with those deep-blue, lady killing eyes, shook my hand and said, “I truly
appreciate that.”

I can honestly say
that it’s going to be a sad day when the final day comes for Jeter, much like
the highly emotional goodbye that I witnessed of Schmidt’s 25 years ago. There
are very few who have played the game with the determination, leadership and
class that Jeter has displayed for almost a quarter century. In this age of
speculation and vendettas I am truly happy to look back on the 27 years of
being a baseball fan and be able to say, “I saw a legend from beginning to
end.” I can only hope the next generation of fans will be so lucky to say the
same thing.

Clearly there are a few stats that need to be updated: Jeter
ended up playing in his 14th All-Star Game, at which he probably
should have won the MVP Award for, his 3,465 career hits are not only still the
most in Yankees history, but he is now sixth all-time for career hits in MLB
history, just 49 away from Hall of Famer Tris Speaker. Realistically, if Jeter
played one more full season he could easily surpass Speaker. Pretty wild to
think about.

9/25/14: This was a pretty easy decision. Despite all the
accomplishments Jeter racked up throughout his career, his final game at Yankee
Stadium was too amazing of a night to pass up and not say anything about. To be
honest, I really didn’t have any intention of watching the game and I really
can’t think of what I was flipping back-and-forth to in between Jeter’s
at-bats, but what I really remember started when he took the field in the first
inning.

In some way Jeter had always come off as a bit robotic to
me, in that his mind was always in the game. Whether he made an amazing catch,
turned a great double play or even biffed a ball off of his glove, Jeter went
immediately back into the zone, awaiting the next play. At the moment when all
the fans started chanting his name over and over and over, the reality clearly
set in upon Jeter’s face. You could clearly tell that he was fighting back some
serious emotions, and of course, like with a lot of you, a tear or two welled
up in my eyes. But Jeter, tough as nails, fought through it and put on a
display that truly defined his character.

Every at-bat the man saw was spectacular, knocking in Brett
Gardner is his first plate appearance of the game to give the Yankees a 1-0
lead over the Orioles, and even the seventh inning bases loaded two-run error
he forced. However, it was his final curtain call in the bottom of the ninth
inning with the game now tied up at five each thanks to David Robertson’s blown
save at the top of the inning which made the baseball world explode. Hell, my
words can’t even do it justice, just watch it.

As I mentioned in my eDraft article, it’s kind of weird to
think that this generation and those that follow may never experience a player
of Jeter’s caliber accumulate a Hall of Fame career having played for the same team who drafted them.
Only time and money will tell, I suppose.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

My parents had separated for only a few months when my other
decided to take my brothers Matt and Adam and myself to Livermore, California
to visit our grandmother for a weekend in August in 1989. We had left on Friday
the 11th, but we returned to our home in Bakersfield on Wednesday the 16th
after missing a few too many days of school. It wasn’t like my mom to have us
miss class, but I think she needed some extra time to spend with our
grandmother to really grasp everything that had come to her and my father
splitting up. From what I can recall the eventual divorce hit my oldest brother
Matt the hardest as he was about to turn 11 in November, and at that age the
sense of “I did something to cause this” was starting to settle into his mind.
My brother Adam, who would be turning 10 the same month, took a protector role
as I was too young to really understand what was going on. As the years pressed
on these roles shifted slightly; Matt hated my mother for almost two decades as
he eventually blamed her for their split, and Adam flip-flopped a bit on things
as he became way more rebellious and sometimes took his frustration out on me.
I merely sat back and observed, occasionally taking the role of the leader as I
became way more methodical about the situation as I got older. As I loom back
on the way things have panned out, it almost feels like a dream. No child
should ever be put in that situation. I fully understand that marriage isn’t a
for sure thing, even in a Mormon household that I grew up in. Everyone will be
changed in some way, but it’s how we react to that adversity is what truly
defines our character. I did my best to rise above the pain and frustration, as
did my brothers, mother and father, but that’s not to say we didn’t slip from
time to time. Today we’re all a bit happier. My mother and father don’t speak
to one another, but my brothers and I don’t hold the grudges against either of
them, nor do we bicker and fight like we used to anymore. I’m not entirely sure
how my brothers got over it, but for me, I was always sought sports for my
comfort.

1989 was an especially weird year, and the divorce made
things especially odd when the World Series came around that October. Adam and
my father had both grown up huge San Francisco Giants fans while Matt and I
favored the Oakland Athletics. Obviously we all know how that series panned out. Matt and I were more than jubilant while Adam and my dad had the bitter
taste of defeat in their mouth. My mother was indifferent due to her Boston Red
Sox loyalty, but from what I recall, it was the last time I remember us all
being collectively involved and happy in the wake of the madness that would
slowly tear us all apart for the majority of 20 years.

There’s a reason I brought all of this to the table and most
of it has to do with that weekend in August. While I remember small bits and
pieces of my brothers and me running around the neighborhood of my
grandmother’s house on Drake Way,
I only partially remember my mother crying and her mother trying to console as
I looked on in confusion. As the days passed I did my best to entertain myself
by watching movies and baseball to kind of tune everything out since no one was
making an effort to fill me in on everything that was happening. That weekend
the Athletics had taken two out of three from the California Angels and beat
the Cleveland Indians on Tuesday by the final score of 5-2. As for the Giants,
they had lost two of three from their longtime rival the Los Angeles Dodgers
and had begun a three game series on Tuesday in Montreal against the Expos. The Athletics
game wasn’t on, but the Giants game was being broadcast on KTVU, so my brothers
and I ended up watching it that evening. There’s a reason why I remember all
these little bits and details even though most adults shouldn’t more than 24
years later. This was the night that I, and every Giants and Expos fan who
happened to be watching that game, saw Dave Dravecky pitch for the last time.

8/15/89: It would be a few years before I fully understood
what I was watching. I had heard the name Dravecky a few times in the three
years that I had been following baseball, but it didn’t really stick until he
took the mound against the Expos. He had started the game for the Giants, only
his second appearance/start of the season after he underwent surgery in October
of 1988, in which doctors removed half of the deltoid muscle in his pitching
arm and froze the humerus bone in an effort to eliminate all of the cancerous
cells that had been spreading throughout his left arm; his pitching arm. He had
returned to the mound after an extensive rehab run in the minors on August 10th
against the Cincinnati Reds, a game in which he would thrown eight innings
while only allowing three earned runs on four hits and a walk on the road to
the win.

Against the Expos Dravecky had started out on fire, throwing a
no-hitter through three innings before giving up a single to Andres Galarraga
with one out in the top of the fourth. Dravecky went on to retire the next two
batters. The Giants tacked on a run in the top of the fifth inning to give them
a 1-0 lead. Dravecky had a some trouble in the bottom half of the inning, but
managed to get through it after allowing back-to-back singles by Tim Wallach
and Mike Fitzgerald before retiring the next three batters. Dravecky recalled a
tingling sensation in his arm throughout the inning, but persevered. In the top
of the sixth Will Clark led off with a single before Matt Williams cranked a
two-run blast off of Bryn Smith to give the Giants a 3-0 lead going into the bottom
of the inning. With a lead in tact and the minimum amount of innings to get a
decision in the books, Dravecky took to the mound to face second baseman
Damaso Garcia. Dravecky’s first pitch was a ball, but his second pitch was
right down Garcia’s wheelhouse as he blasted it to deep left field (3-1
Giants). The next batter was Galarraga. Dravecky started off a little shaky as
his arm was started to bother him more intently. He got Galarraga up to a 2-2
count but eventually beaned him on the sixth pitch. A few Expos fans booed, but
it’s pretty obvious that Dravecky didn’t mean to retaliate over the home run,
especially after getting the next batter to a 2-2 count. With Galarraga on
first base, up to the plate came the ever-dangerous Tim Raines who had gone 0-1
with a walk in his previous two plate appearance. After a brief cool down
Dravecky got into his wind-up and fired a shot that went high and to the left
into the net behind home plate. Before anyone could grasp what had happened,
Dravecky dropped to the ground in writhing pain. The shoulder on his pitching
arm, in the same area where the surgeons had removed the cancerous tumors, had
snapped. It’s not often that one sees a grown man in such pain on live TV, but
the gravity of the situation never leaves your mind. There are a few videos on
the web that show what happened, but I’m not in favor of posting it. Fictional
violence in film is one thing, but showing something horrific happen to another
human being is where I draw the line. The news broke later that night of what
had actually happened, but I didn’t find out until the next day. After a few
more surgeries and staph infection broke out in Dravecky’s arm, he made the
decision to have it amputated.

I’ve brought this up in a few of my other blog posts, in
that I really didn’t come into my writing skills until I was 13-years-old. The
moment it all became apparent was in Mr. Fowler’s American History class at Fruitvale Jr. High School
in Bakersfield
when we were given a major presentation assignment under the topic of “Triumph
and Tragedy” or “Tragedy and Triumph.” There really was no wrong way of doing
it just as long as the essence of perseverance was conveyed through our report.
I chose Dravecky’s story through his book Comeback. One of the other
reference items I had to aid me in my report was one of my favorite videos that
I miraculously came across on Ebay back in 2008 on VHS called “Champions by the
Bay,” an essential collectors piece for any Giants or Athletics fan. Due to the
fact that the internet was really just getting dropped on the world at the
time, all of my research came from these two resources and a scatter of
magazine and newspaper clippings that I could come across. At the time, I
didn’t know a whole lot about Dravecky other than his years with the Giants,
what I later came to realize is that he was way more of a polarizing in
baseball than most remember.

Born in Youngstown, Ohio Dravecky attended his hometown college, Youngstown State, where he was drafted by the
Pittsburgh Pirates in the 21st round of the 1978 amateur draft. He
spent his first three years in the minors with the Class-A Charleston Pirates
(1978) before getting promoted to the AA Buffalo Bisons, where he spent two
seasons (1979-1980) going 6-7 in his first year and 13-7 with a 3.35 ERA in his
second. When 1981 came around he was traded to the San Diego Padres where he
went 15-5 with a 2.67 ERA and 141 strikeouts with the AA Amarillo Gold Sox. It
was in this season that he became a devout Christian. 1982 with the AAA Hawaii
Islanders started off just as prosperous, 4-1 with a 2.48 ERA and 26 strikeouts
in 16 appearances (15 in relief), when he was called up to the Majors and made
his debut on June 15th of that year. From then until the middle of
1987 Dravecky made 199 appearances (119 starts) and finished with a 53-50
record, a 3.12 ERA, 456 strikeouts, one All-Star Game appearance in 1982 and
one appearance in the World Series in 1984 against the Detroit Tigers, which
they lost in five games. Dravecky pitched 10 2/3 innings in the playoff that
season and didn’t allow a single run while striking out 10 batters.

In the middle of the 1987 season the Padres traded Dravecky
along with Craig Lefferts and Kevin Mitchell to the Giants in exchange for
Chris Brown, Keith Comstock (who will appear in a future post), Mark Davis and
Mark Grant. If you know anything about 1980s baseball, you know that the Giants
totally owned the Padres on this deal. For the rest of the 1987 season Dravecky
went 7-5 in 18 starts with a 3.20 ERA and 78 strikeouts as well as an
appearance in the National League Championship Series against the St. Louis
Cardinals, which they lost in seven games. Dravecky made two starts and went
1-1 despite pitching 15 innings while only allowing one run seven hits and four
walks while striking out 14 batters. Seriously, he was lights out, but the
Giants couldn’t give him any run support after Cardinals’ right fielder Jose
Oquendo lobbed a sacrifice fly in the second inning of Game Six.

In 1988 Dravecky started off the season well, but was shut
down after his start on May 28th when the cancerous desmoid tumor
was discovered.

He had pitched in seven games, going 2-2 with a 3.16 ERA and 19
strikeouts. When he made his return at Candlestick Park
on August 10th he was met by a standing ovation from the sold out
crowd of 34,810 fans.

As I mentioned above, he pitched beautifully. His
comeback merited the Hutch Award at the end of the season which is given to the
player who "best exemplifies the fighting spirit and competitive
desire" of Fred Hutchinson, by persevering through adversity. The award
was created in 1965 in honor of Hutchinson, the former MLB pitcher and manager,
who died of lung cancer the previous year. When Dravecky’s pitching career
ended on that unfortunate day on August 15th, one detail from that
game ended up being an intriguing moment down the road. Garcia, the player who
had hit the home run off of Dravecky in the top of the sixth inning, saw his
playing career come to an end less than month later in September 12th.
The home run he hit would turn out to be the last in his 11-year career. Even
eerier, a year after he retired, Garcia started to have double vision and was
diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. In 1991, Garcia had the tumor removed,
and was told that he only has six months to live. The effects of the tumor left
him with limited speech and certain movement. He recovered enough to throw out
the first pitch of a Toronto Blue Jays playoff game in 1992, the team he had
been with for the majority of his career (1980-1986). His oldest son suffers
from hemophilia which prompted Garcia to run a baseball camp for hemophiliac
children in the Dominican
Republic. As for Dravecky, he found himself
at an unusual crossroad after the additional surgeries, the staph infection and
the eventual amputation of June 18, 1991. After his recovery Dravecky looked at
his life and analyzed his relationship with God and realized that baseball was
merely a stepping stone to reach the next step. He began touring as a motivational
speaker he wrote two books about his battles with cancer and his comeback
attempt: Comeback,
published in 1990 and written with Tim Stafford, and When You Can't Come
Back, co-authored with wife Jan and Ken Gire and published in 1992.
He has also written a Christian motivational book titled Called Up which
was published in 2004.

I don’t speak much of religion in my posts unless it is
pertinent to the topic at hand. As I mentioned above, and in a few other
instances, I was raised Mormon. Most of what I have done in life may not
reflect that of the typical Latter-Day Saint lifestyle (alcohol consumption,
tattoos, smoking, etc.), but the one thing that has stayed within my life from
those days is my faith in God. I’m a firm believer in the philosophy of “everything
happens for a reason,” but that part that I differ on from most religions is
that I don’t feel that God is necessarily controlling those moments. To me, God
is merely watching over us, working more as a conscience when it comes to
moments of right or wrong and taking the next step. It’s really more of a
comfort, kind of like the way our parents are always by our sides, reminding us
that they gave us the tools to succeed and now it’s up to us to choose the
right path as they look on. Nothing about what I believe is meant to persuade
anyone. You are all free to believe what you want and do what you want, but
this is merely look into how I became the man I am today as I reflect upon the
moments from my childhood that somehow became involved with the day that
Dravecky took the mound for the last time. Much like Dravecky, an injury while
I was playing baseball is inevitably what ended my possible opportunity to play
professional baseball. Obviously mine wasn’t as horrendous, but the end result
was the same: Baseball is merely a platform for us to see what our greater
purpose is. For Dravecky, it’s sharing his story and sharing his testimony and relationship with God. For me, it’s sharing stories through my writing and
baseball in the attempt to become a better person and help others along the
way. While my drive isn’t a religiously charged as Dravecky’s, the mission is
still the same.

Originally I was going to save this post until I could track down a Giants 1989 World Series cap since he was a part of the team that year, but I have something else planned for that. Instead, I chose this cap that the team used as their game cap from 1983 until the end of the 1993 season. Even though there were a lot of stories to tell during that time frame, nothing really embodied the good spirit of those teams quite like Dravecky in the two-and-a-half-years he was on the field. When I laid out my
design plan for my mascot and logos tattoos I did it with the intention that
every single piece had a greater story behind it. For the Giants, I got rather
subtly creative.

Originally I was going to add the old Crazy Crab that
everyone used to hate, and I may still add that down the road, but ultimately I
chose Lou Seal. More specifically, I found a picture of Lou Seal from a kids
MLB coloring book which featured a picture of him giving the thumbs up. Now,
being an Athletics fan I of course had to put my tweak on it by giving it a
thumbs down on top of the old school green underbrim on the cap; however, there
is one aspect that I was very specific about that very few ever notice. If you
look above you’ll notice that Lou Seal isn’t exactly all in frame. Yes, his
legs are being boxed out by Chief Noc-a-Homa below, but the left arm was
purposely covered up/removed as my tribute to Dravecky. Also, and this will
blow your mind even more, if you look at the full tattoo below you’ll see that
the two team mascots to his left (the Reds and Expos) are the last two teams he
faced, and the last two teams he notched wins against as the Giants still won
the game on August 15th as they preserved a 3-2 lead to end the
game.

I may not see eye-to-eye with Giants fans most of the time,
but I do respect their history and quite a few of their players. Until the day
comes when I am dispatched from this life, I am happy to have Dravecky always
be a part of it.

Monday, December 16, 2013

I don’t know how to
start this post, so I’m just going to get into it. I’m very lucky and very
happy to be alive and I'm sorry for the families who were affected by the shooting at the Clackamas Town Center Mall. I know the heading date doesn't correspond, but the real time does. Please forgive that error.

Each of my 350 New Era Caps tells a specific story, but only
a small handful of them have become synonymous with specific life-changing moments.
Prior to today I had only worn this cap once on December 12, 2012, even though
I bought it from the Lids in Eugene, Oregon about eight or nine months prior. I
really don’t have a specific reason as the why I never wore it. To be honest,
when you have as many caps as I do, you tend to forget about wearing a lot of
them. This cap in particular carries the story of one of the most intense,
depressing days of my life, and I couldn’t be happier to still be able to tell
the tale. As I look back on the way my day started, I have to attribute this
accessory decision to Baltimore Orioles outfielder Adam Jones.

I was living at my parents’ house in Portland,
Oregon at the time since my final term at the University of Oregon didn’t start until the first week
of January. Rather than be bored and jobless after the baseball season had
ended, I went back to work at Just Sports (@JustSportsPDX) at the Clackamas
Town Center Mall in southeastern Portland to help out my friend/boss Jason Cobb
(@JasonMCobb) and to put some extra cash into my pocket. This day in particular
I was set to work the closing shift of the higher-volume store downstairs as
Jason used it as one of his days off and I always preferred to close rather
than open since I’m usually livelier in the evening. This day in particular was
especially gloomy and cold, but thankfully not raining. My dog Tuaca, a
Rottweiler, woke me up around 9:30 AM by jumping on the bed to lick my face,
just like she did every morning before the last. My parents had already left for
work, but what I remember most is that my mother didn’t come into my room to
wake me up as she likes to do around 7 AM, well before I have any desire to see
the light of day. With dog slobber running down my face I made my way to the
bathroom to wash up before I headed into the kitchen to destroy a bowl of
Cinnamon Toast Crunch. It was tasty.

I still had plenty of time to get ready as the drive to the
mall was only about 40 minutes away (holiday traffic) so I did my usual
Twittering. At this time I was still posting photos from my time in the MLB Fan
Cave and my tour across the country to my Instagram account and for some reason
I had decided to chat about when Jones and then-Oriole Robert Andino had
dropped in to shoot the “Put Some Birds on it” sketch. Andino didn’t say much,
but Jones was certainly the life of the party, all smiles and willing to do
whatever. Due to the fact that nobody in the Fan Cave
was an Orioles fan I opted to rock the home style cap along with a Nike shirt
that my friend Samuel had designed for the occasion. Besides my apparel, Jones
had taken a shine to me because of my MLB tattoos, most notably the Billy Ripken homage and my “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” piece. When the time came for
Jones, Andino and the production crew to hit the streets to continue filming,
Jones told me to come along too.

I didn’t say or do much while we were out and about except
snap pictures and occasionally swap jokes, but just being there and being
wanted to be there was really all the prize unto itself. Jones and Andino made
me feel appreciated, even if I wasn’t an Orioles fan. I think deep down they
both knew that I didn’t take all of the glitz and glamour serious, and that I
just wanted to have fun. So, when I posted the photos of before…

and after…

And tagged him in them, we had a bit to talk about seven
months removed from that day. To give clarification, the top photo was from the
two of them walking the streets with the big Orioles logo and the bottom one
was a photo I personally wanted to send to my friend Scott Landis
(@ScottCLandis), an actual Orioles fan, for his birthday that was a month away
at the time. Not too long after I posted them Jones hit me up, started
following on Twitter and we gabbed for a bit about Andino going to Seattle to play for the
Mariners. After we wrapped things up I hit the shower, got dressed and picked
out my cap.

Despite the number of Orioles caps I own I had yet to
dedicate any of my markings from the current caps to anyone except Andino,
which I’ll get into in a later post. With the 2012 to present road cap still
available I marked it up with the two guys who I knew would be superstars in Baltimore when their
careers came to an end..

#10- Adam Jones

#13- Manny Machado

In retrospect I realize how amusing it is for me of all people
to give Machado this accolade, especially after all the guff I got from Orioles
fans all season after I said Josh Donaldson was better, but none of that means
that I don’t think Machado is going to be a star. He most definitely is.

This majority of thisportion I
wrote around 2:00 AM on December 13, 2012. I have added a few pieces since.

I arrived about 15 minutes early and checked my online
activity on my phone at the Starbucks at the southwestern side of the mall, as
that was the best spot for me to get internet access. Before I left my house I
had posted (above) my 4-step New Era photo of me taking off the stickers,
creasing the bill and marking the hat with jersey numbers for one of my newer
Orioles hats. I had gotten a few likes, which I was satisfied with and headed
in a little early to see if any new freight had come in. There had, but only
about 4 new boxes, nothing terrible. I clocked in and dove in to try and get
caught up on the previous freight. We had gotten in a load of NFL, Oregon Ducks
and NBA jersey restock as well as a lot of popular sweatshirts. My co-assistant
manager Clayton and I stuck to the freight whilst the other employees: Adam,
Connor, Justin and Kevin helped the customers. Every now-and-then I popped out
onto the floor to help someone, but for the most part I stuck to getting the
product out. I had quickly knocked out one of the boxes. Since a lot of the
product required sensor tags, I first put out all of the stuff that didn’t need
them: Portland Timbers gear. We had about 5 adult and youth jersey to throw on
our 50% off rounder so I finessed them in, along with about 7 hooded
sweatshirts. I walked back to grab the last two shirts when I heard a loud
bang.

I have heard in moments like this that time stands still. A
few of the customers around me and I exchanged glances and all had puzzled
looks. Somewhere in a matter of a fraction of a second we all came to the
conclusion, mentally at least, that the sound was probably a large box that had
fallen to the ground and made the commotion. As I turn to hang up the last two
shirts it started… BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!!! Having fired off an
array of hand guns, assault rifles and sniper ripples with my stepfather, I
knew what I was hearing. Everyone in the store, roughly 12 people including
myself, had stopped in their tracks. I on the other hand sprinted to the door
to close and lock them. I remember yelling, “Get out!” to everyone as I ran,
but still no one moved. I saw dozens of people running eastward as I got to the
door and told and grabbed as many people as I could into the store before no
one else was within my grasp. I closed the doors, hit the deck and locked the
massive glass doors as quickly as I could. One kid in particular was standing
next to me doing nothing. I yelled, “Get the fuck to the back of the store!” He
froze. I then pushed and yelled at everyone else to go out the back door.
Clayton and the rest of my co-workers to notice and began rushing everyone out.
I had never been in a situation like this before, by a sense of leadership
overcame me. As soon as I saw everyone clear out the back I quickly closed the
door completely and ducked behind the sales counter, waiting to see if anyone
would walk by. After a few moments I walked toward the front to see if there
was anyone else out there. Sure enough there were patrons casually walking
through the mall on their cell phones. I unlocked one of the doors and called
for them to come in. Once they cleared the threshold I locked it again,
explained what had happened and got them out. I then moved back to the counter
area and got on twitter to post that there had been a shooting. I’m still not
sure why, but I momentarily went back about my business as the phone rang from
other stores in our company looking for product. I told them all that there had
been a shooting and their attitude quickly changed, making sure I was OK. I
said yes, asked what they were looking for and gave them an answer. In between
calls I continued to tweet what I was seeing.

Clayton and Adam had started texting me, asking if I was
still inside. I told them yes and that I was waiting. At this time they
informed that the police had arrived and surrounded the building. When I read
that I knew I couldn’t just walk out into safety. Looking the way I do, with my
beard and all, I would be greeted by local law enforcement with all guns on me,
ready to be taken into custody to be questioned. Obviously I had no
involvement, but they don’t know that. I continued to stay behind the counter
and kept tweeting. For some reason I took to trying to be a bit more humorous
for a few. I remembered reading about Brett Lawrie being in a mall when a
shooting had broken out and so I sent out a tweet to the tune of, “I feel a lot
like Brett Lawrie right now.” After that I sent, “I'm glad I have shoes on.
Last thing I need is broken glass and bare feet like John MacLaine,” an obvious
Die Hard reference. Almost immediately after that tweet SWAT had taken siege. I
saw three teams of three stroll by the front of the store, all armed with AR-15
rifles and full body gear. After they passed I hit the floor and crept my way
across to the front to snap some photos.

I finally saw a sheriff’s deputy across the way and signaled
to him that I was trapped inside. He motioned for me to get back, so I did. Ben
Lacy, a producer at KGW in Portland, and fellow Oregon alum, hit me up
on Twitter and asked if they could do a live interview. I sent him a DM with my
number and said yes. Five minutes later I was live on the air, taking the
reporter step by step as to what had happened. A few minutes in, the police had
arrived at the door and motioned for me. The glass isn’t soundproof, so they
told me to unlock the door and be ready to stay low and move out. I had
forgotten my Galaxy Note and jacket, but didn’t care. I wanted to get out. As
soon as I got the green light, I cleared out. I looked back and noticed that
there were six totally officers, all armed to the teeth with .45s, shotguns and
rifles. I booked a sharp right and headed out.

Now, at the time when I made my exit I thought I had an
officer tailing behind me as an escort. I didn’t. As soon as I cleared the
threshold of the door I was “greeted” by five officers with shotguns and
assault rifles all pointed at me.

“Get your hands up!” I heard someone yell.

I complied.

“Get on your knees and drop the phone!” I heard.

I did

“Slowly lay down and cross your legs!”

As soon as I did I felt my Orioles hat slip down over my
face, but I remained motionless. The last thing I wanted was a bullet entering
any part of my body. All I could think about was the first two seasons of the
TV show “The Wire” that I had been going through whenever I had free time. More
than likely you can chalk that up to the fact that the show takes place in Baltimore and I happened
to be wearing an Orioles cap. One of the deputies came around and slapped
handcuffs on me, pulled me up and walked me to the left for questioning. I
stood up straight and answered everything he asked: Name, business at the mall,
etc. He then got on his intercom and asked for a description of the suspect,
which luckily I didn’t fit. As I stood there shivering in khaki and pants and a
polo shirt in the cold more people began exiting… all of which glared at me as
they passed as if I was the shooter. I didn’t let it bother me. I turned my
head to the left to get a look at the deputy and listen in on the responses he
was getting. He was almost a foot shorter than me with short grey hair and an
amazing salt and pepper mustache and glasses. He then slipped his business card
into my pocket and told me to call if I had any information to give as he
unlocked the steel bracelets. He pointed me toward the left of the parking lot
and told me to get out that way. I did what he asked and walked away… for a
bit. Around this time I was getting texts and calls from a lot of people making
sure I was safe. Since my Note was still inside the store I couldn’t get on
Twitter to let everyone know I had made it out. I texted everyone I knew who
had Twitter to let them know and to let others know I was fine. Unfortunately,
most of the people that I knew who had large followings on Twitter are all on
the East Coast. Not until the end of the night did it dawn on me that they had
no idea what was going on. Therefore, I got a lot of confused texts back. My
friend Kat in Boston,
who works for NECN, called me up; made sure I was doing fine and asked if I
would do an interview.

Kat and I went to the University
of Oregon together and I crashed at
her place in Boston
during my second trip there over the summer during my MLB stadium tour. She is
also one of the few reporters to be on the scene as the bomb went off near the
finish line of the Boston Marathon. I said I’d be more than happy to. As we
chatted on the phone I noticed more people leaving the mall… I then hatched a
plan. I really wanted my Note back so I could get back on Twitter to give
updates so I asked the deputy at the door if he could escort me back to the
store so I could lock it up, which is actually true. He said yes and took me
back. About halfway there he asked another deputy, the one who handcuffed and
questioned me, to take me the rest of the way. He jokingly said yes and
followed me in. I quickly ran in and grabbed my jacket, cigarettes, Note and
locked the door on my way out. It was during this time that I noticed tables,
chairs and product from stores strewn about the walkway of the mall.

It was a rather eerie feeling, but for some reason I
was still calm. I half sprinted back to the original doorway I had exited the
mall and passed by a girl crying hysterically and talking to two officers as
she had witnessed the shooting. I didn’t gather much as I wanted to get back
outside. Once again, as I cleared the door way the same officer was about to
yell at me to get down, but realized I was the same guy as before. A slight
moment passed and he told me to be on my way. I called Kat back and did the
interview with one of their reports and walked across the road where I knew
there was a Starbucks with Wi-Fi. I sat down and typed away. Giving updates on
Facebook and Twitter what I knew, and what I had overheard. It also gave me
time to call my parents and assure everyone that I was safe.

Over the next hour or so I did interviews with KATU in
Portland, NECN live in air, the Jeff Sammut Show (@JeffSammut590) in Toronto
and even Good Morning America. I posted photos and got hit up by FOX and CNN
for permission to run the photos and do more interviews. It was a weird
feeling. Despite going to the U of O for journalism, I had always wanted to do
sports. This was way more important and I gave my clearance on everything as it
is my responsibility to relay the information.

Around 5:45 PM PST, over two hours since the shooting had
started; I finally got in my car and headed home. Mentally I was burnt out and
just wanted to get back into the familiar. Traffic was pretty ridiculous and I
called ahead to my mom to let her know. With nothing but the steering in my
hands and my thoughts, my brain drifted back to when I was 14-years-old, living
in Bakersfield, California. (This part of the story I have
never told anyone)

I can’t really remember the date, but I do remember it was
spring. I was with a few of my friends at his parents’ house, a few blocks from
Centennial High School where we all attended. We had
been sitting around, watching TV and gabbing about usual high schooler things.
Around 4:30 his older brother walked into the house and sat down with us. As he
sat down he pulled out a bad of marijuana and his .45 from the waistband of the
back of his pants. What I didn’t know and everyone else did was that he was a
drug dealer. At that time I really didn’t like guns too much so I sat away from
everyone else as they talked about it and wanted to see it. After about five
minutes of that nonsense I had to pee so I got up and went down the hall and
around a left turn corner to go. I finished, washed my hands and walked out. As
I was about to bank right back into their living room the gun fired. I didn’t
realize it at first until I turned my head to the right and noticed the gun
pointing at my face. I then turned me head quickly left and noticed a bullet
hole in the wall. The bullet had whizzed about 7 inches from my face and by the
grace of God had missed. Everyone in the living room froze, except for my friend’s
brother who quickly snatched the gun out of the hand of the kid who had fired
it. Despite the clip being out of the gun, my friend’s brother forgot to take
the one in the chamber out before he handed it off to let the younglings play
with it. The last thing I remember was yelling at everyone, crying and running
home. I didn’t tell my parents and I stopped talking to the kid who had pulled
the trigger for years. That, realistically, is the closest I had ever come to
dying as a result of gun-related means.

Throughout my day I had been calm and collective. The
shooting at the mall took place about 200 yards away from me, yet I still went
into protective mode over everyone else. Perhaps the trauma from my youth made
me less scared? I’ll never really know. After seeing my parents, having dinner
with them and watching “North by Northwest” with them, the gravity of today’s
events didn’t hit me until they went to bed.

What happened when I was a kid was in isolated incident, but
what happened today took place on a much larger scale. Three people are dead,
including the shooter. Thousands of people will be affected by this for the
rest of their lives. As terrible as things got, I am forever grateful that I
was there to have a clear head and to help people get to safety. Hero is a word
I’ve heard a few times since. Thrown around casually as we do with our sports
icons, but I certainly don’t feel like one. I just did what needed to be done.
I can only hope that others do the same in a similar situation.

Back to today

Over the last year I have spoken to a few people about it,
but for the most part I don’t really bring it up unless somebody else does. In
the time shortly after that night our country was dealt with another vicious
blow as 26 kids and a teacher were gunned down in a similar fashion at Sandy Hook Elementary School
in Newtown, Connecticut. Dealing with the death of
adults via shooting has been something I’ve been able to deal with; however,
the death of kids, in any fashion, is an unfortunate blight that is truly hard
to shake. The one thing from that day that I haven’t been able to shake is the
information that came to light when my co-worker/friend Adam Weaver and I went
back to work to clean up the store right before the mall re-opened their doors,
we had in fact met the shooter a few days prior.

Adam was the one who had helped and rung him up for a
Pittsburgh Pirates Cooperstown Collection New Era Cap, but the three us, along
with his friend he had with him, all chatted it out for a bit afterward. Nothing
from that moment would have indicated that he would come back and do the
horrible thing that he did. But then again, what really are the warning signs
for these kinds of things? I’m not going to spin this into a philosophical
piece, but I do want to conclude by saying that every person I’ve met in my
life, even for just five seconds, has some bearing on my shaping of who I am
today. The same can really be said for all of us. Over the last year I had my
ups and downs, but the most significant of downs came as my time in the Fan Cave
came to an end and the way my relationships with those I worked with crumbled
in the months to follow. Lindsay Guentzel, Ricky Mast and Shaun Kippins were
the only three from my time to contact me after the shooting and Mike O’Hara
and Ryan Wagner from the first season were on top of things with me as the
information unfolded. As for the rest, nothing.

A lot of my turmoil between the rest of the group I had
covered back on my July 16th post about the National League All-Star cap and how things went sour during the 2012 All-Star Game. One thing I may
have left out in that was how, even in my later apologies, I had tried to get a
hold of Ricardo Marquez as soon as I got home that night, but didn’t receive a
reply. I’m not trying to make him look like a jerk, nor anybody else, but in
the weeks that followed the shooting I really felt wrongfully neglected by the
group even though I was doing my damndest to patch things up. To each their
own, I suppose.

What I want to leave you all with is some insight. It’s very
unhealthy to bottle things up. This is something I’ve learned and continue to
learn when I write these blog posts. Not everyone will be your friend, but it’s
almost important to put forth a good effort and let others know that you’ll be
there for them. Who knows what kind of tragedies can be prevented down the
road, but even if they can’t be prevented, at least you’ll have a clear
conscience on knowing that you did everything you could. This could go for
anyone really. It doesn’t matter how big or small or close the person is to
you, resolving your issues, helping out others and showing someone that you
care goes a lot farther than anyone can think. Not a day goes by that I wish I
didn’t do more or could take back all the harsh things that happened between
the people I care about and myself. For the rest of my life I’ll be living with
these things, and for the rest of my life this hat will be a symbol to remind
me of how to make it better.

Friday, December 13, 2013

I’ve been to Canada
three times in my life. The first time was when I was 19-years-old. My
girlfriend at the time and I traveled north to Vancouver, B.C. for a weekend of boozery and
gambling. What ended up happening is that I became violently ill after the
first night, but still partied through the pain. When we got back to Vancouver,
Washington I dropped by the doctors office to see what was wrong with me after
my fever of 104 degrees wouldn’t go away and because I was actually pissing
orange. At first my doctor thought I had contracted hepatitis, but I lucked out
and only had a wicked case of mononucleosis.

The second time I ventured up was in during late August of
2009 when my then-girlfriend took a job teaching German at an immersion school
in Anchorage, Alaska. She didn’t have a lot of stuff to
move, but we managed to get it all into her Ford Focus and drive all the way
from Eugene, Oregon to her new place. It took us four
days and close to 3,000 miles to make it through some of the mostly uninhabited,
yet strangely beautiful country that I never in my life imagined that I would
have ever visited. It took me four-and-a-half hours to fly back to Portland and she promptly
broke up with me less than three weeks later. Needless to say, my experiences
with Canada
were not exactly the most riveting.

My last trip came in late July of 2012 when I flew into Toronto to meet up with my friend, and fellow MLB Fan
Cave hopeful Dave Barclay
(@DaveBarc). I stayed with him and his wife Krista for about six days and took
in four Toronto Blue Jays games, two against my Oakland Athletics and two
against my friend, and another Fan Cave hopeful Jay Tuohey’s (@TheRoar_24)
Detroit Tigers before I headed east to Montreal to visit my good friend Dave
Kaufman (@TheKaufmanShow) for a week. In short, it was one of the greatest
experiences of my life.

My time in Toronto
felt like it flew by way faster than it did. The first leg of my journey
started at the airport when I was almost not allowed into the country. Due to
the fact that I was staying for such a long period of time, leaving the country
by car with Dave and looking the way I do made a few people in customs a bit
suspicious of my trip. It wasn’t until I fibbed a little bit and said that I
worked for Major League Baseball that they started to come around and
understand what I was doing. Due to the fact that the Expos no longer play in Montreal it caused a bit
of red flag. I had to explain to them that I was writing a book on Olympic
Stadium and the culture of baseball in Eastern Canada before they finally
understood my purpose for being their. After an hour-and-a-half delay I
received my stamp and approval and I made my way to baggage claim and then on
out to Dave’s car as we had to then haul ass to the Rogers Centre for that
night’s game against the Athletics. Thank God we made it too, as that was the
game when Josh Reddick pulled off the Spiderman catch to rob Travis Snyder of a
home run and the Blue Jays suffered their biggest home loss (0-16) in franchise
history. I was left grinning…

Dave had a bit of sad face.

The next game I went to solo, but met up with a fellow
Athletics fan from Canada named Brad Baker (@Beleaf33).

We both managed to score tickets right behind the visiting
(Athletics) dugout, but our seats were a ways apart. Oddly enough, a few of the
Blue Jays fans in the surrounding seats pointed out that there were two empty
seats together and invited us to sit together, because Canadians are too damn
nice! I met up with Jonny Gomes before the game started and a few of the other
players were shocked to not only see me outside of Oakland, but in another country.

I explained
to them that I had it planned out in advance all around catching the last two
games of the series which helped their morale quite a bit. As everyone took
their place on the field I headed back to my seat where I was stopped by two of
the ushers asking me if I was the guy from the Fan Cave.
I smiled and said yes and we chatted for a bit about it. To be honest, most of
my time in Toronto
at Rogers Centre was met with people stopping to take photos with me and to ask
about my experience. I don’t say any of this to brag, I honestly am humbled by
all of it and was very appreciative of everyone who paid attention to what I
had done and all the support they had and still give me. When I got back to my
seat it was time for the National Anthems. Because we were in Canada they started with the Star-Spangled
Banner, which the singer flew through because, well… it’s Canada. I sang
along with it as I usually do and gave a sporting cheer afterward. Then, it was
time for Oh Canada.
I know this sounds weird coming from someone from the United States, but I actually really enjoy Canada’s
anthem. I love it even more because everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, sings along
with it. There’s no shame in not singing your anthem, but it’s kind of telling
how a culture is based on how many people are involved with something that
seems insignificant. And to be honest, I sang along too. I’ve sung for all of
my life, believe it or not, and Oh Canada is one of those songs that
has a wonderful harmony and movement that is almost irresistible to resist
singing to. More important, it’s truly inspiring. Don’t believe me, check out this video from Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals in 2011. Chilling.

One point from this game that I’ll never forget is when I
was standing in line for a beer and I met up with one of my now friends Seth
Ehrenberg (@SethE19) for the first time. Seth is a marketing rep for New Era
and one of the biggest reasons why I’ve developed such a close bond with the
company, let alone had the chance to visit their headquarters in Buffalo, New York
twice. After our chance meeting I ran into another friend, Jeff Sammut
(@JeffSammut590), who is one of the regular sports talk guys on 590 Sportsnet
in Toronto who has had me on his show numerous times as a baseball
correspondent over the last year. Unfortunately, the Athletics were only able to take two out
of the three games in that series, and after the loss in the final game I took
to the streets of Toronto
with a few random fans I met at the game and got absolutely plastered. Luckily
I was able to sober up to meet up with Dave and his friend Matt to help make one of his Fan Cave
correspondent videos he had been working on before and after his run. Here it is if you want to check it out. It’s pretty funny, except for me.

The rest of my time was filled with swapping stories with
Dave and his wife, checking out a modernized Shakespeare in the Park production
of “A Midsummer Night’s Tale” along with Jay before we all headed out to the
Tigers/Blue Jays game the next day. I had also happened to catch the first game
of the series with a few friends I had made while I was in New York, Kenneth Tan (@ktan09) and Eric
Hartman (@EricHartman).

Eric, Kenneth, Me

I also ran into a few others I met through Twitter,
Steven P (@stevenact4) and another dude whose name escapes me at the moment.

A few things I do remember from my time with Kenneth and
Eric is that we got thoroughly hammered, saw Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder
hit back-to-back home runs for only the second time that season, Eric won a gift card to Boston Pizza during the game and was shown on the Jumbotron

and I lost my
only source of spending (my debit card) at said Boston Pizza after the game.
Luckily I found it two days later. As for the game with Dave, Jay and Jay’s
dad, shenanigans definitely ensued.

On my final day in the big city before catching the train to
Montreal, Dave
invited Jay over so that he and I could be guests on his MLB podcast that he
does with his friend Paul Frank (@pwgfrank) called Sunday Afternoon Baseball
with Paul & Dave (@SABwithPaulDave).

Paul, Me, Dave

Bias aside, it’s one of the best,
funniest baseball podcasts available which takes place during every Sunday Blue
Jays game and features scores of guests all impersonated perfectly by Paul. I
highly recommend it. As soon as we wrapped things up we all said our goodbyes
and Jay and I caught the bus to the train station so he could bid me a fond
farewell… and also because his hotel was right across the street from the
station. Our adventure would continue in a month when I headed to Detroit, but I’ll save
those stories for later posts. For now, I was on my way to Montreal.

The train took about four hours to get there, but I was
beyond stoked to finally land in a city that I had been wanting to visit since
I was kid. Granted, I wanted to see the Expos play, but with that no longer and
option I was equally satisfied with being able to spend time with my friend
Dave Kaufman on his home turf. And Dave, being the gracious host that he is,
kicked things off by taking me to a local pub called Grumpy’s for a few rounds
and some pub trivia hosted by his good friend Amy Luft (@amyluft). Normally I’m
really good at bar trivia; however, I felt an immediate bias due to the fact
that at least two of the rounds focused heavily on landmarks and history around
Montreal. I
call those rounds my “Ryan Leaf moment.” Other than that, I held my own as Buck
Rodgers judged me from above.

Dave took me all over the city and introduced me to a
culinary staple of Quebec
culture known as poutine at one of the more famous spots called La Banquise. If
you don’t know, it’s basically french fries with brown gravy and cheese curds.
You can also add various meats like bacon to it like we both did, but I could
only woof down about half of mine before the richness of it. One thing that I
will never forget about La Banquise in the three trips that we made there
(twice whilst intoxicated) is that I was absolutely infatuated with one of the
waitresses working there. I don’t speak French, so I was pretty much dead in
the water from the start, but she easily could have been a model for Suicide
Girls. I am much happier in my current relationship, but this story would have
less accurate if I left this detail out. As far as other culinary delights are
concerned, the best part of the trip came when Dave took me to Schwartz’s for a
smoked meat sandwich which can only be perfectly paired with a black cherry
soda. Needless to say, I still have wet dreams about this sandwich.

Dave and I had become acquainted back in February of 2012
when he first had me as a guest on his weekly radio show The Kaufman Show on
TSN 990 in Montreal.
During my time in the Fan Cave I became his weekly correspondent after we
finally met in person when he had paid a visit to New York to catch Bruce Springsteen in
concert, a detail that will be brought up again in a not-too-distant post. Our
mutual love and sadness for the Expos is what brought us together in the first
place and it is definitely what motivated me to go up and visit him.

It took a few days, but we finally made it out to the Big O
sometime around midnight on a week night. I wasn’t in any kind of rush, it’s
not like it was going anywhere…

Sort of. I found this chunk lying on the ground and
definitely held onto it. I had never felt compelled to ever want a piece of a
stadium, but I knew this one would carry a lot of significance based on the
fact that I never had a chance to see the Expos play inside. Most of our
experience that night I wrote about on February 16th for my Gary Carter tribute piece, but what I may have left out is that in that moment, as
an Expos fan, I was happiest. I had never grown up or had other friends who
were Expos fans, nor could they have ever understood the loss of that team
quite like Dave had. Being with someone who had gone through it all could have
only been rivaled by the final Expos game played in the Big O on September 29,
2004 which ironically occurred against the Florida Marlins. Just listening to
Dave’s stories about the 1994 season, Vladimir Guerrero’s bid for 40 home runs
and 40 stolen bases and the moments he shared with his friends and family, good
or bad, was all I needed.

One thing that Dave surprised me with (twice) was entrance
and media passes to OSHEAGA, a three-day music festival that took place in Montreal. Dave had
mentioned it in passing well before I got there, but I didn’t really understand
how big of a deal it was until I saw the lineup: Snoop Dogg (his second
appearance as Snoop Lion), The Black Keys, the Arkells, Garbage, Fun., Bloc
Party, Justice, The Shins and a hell of a lot more. Like I said, three days.

Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of going to live shows, mostly for he sake
of price gouging and so many people “all up in your business;” however, since
this was an outdoor event it made things way more tolerable, plus with
backstage passes food and drinks are like half the price. I got thoroughly
bombed on Day 2.

One of the other really cool aspects of being up in Canada during
this time period was because the Olympics had just kicked off. Having been in
the US
for every Olympics it was interesting to get a different take on the summer
games in a different country. And yes, even in Canada things are vastly different.
See, during the winter games the Canadians obviously own the US when it
comes to medals, but during the summer it’s the other way around. So when the
Canadians win anything (mostly bronze) it’s a huge deal. I found it to be way
more fulfilling than all the years of watching in the US and how it’s
almost a failure if we don’t win gold in a particular event. Not to mention,
having the pleasure of Jay Onrait and Dan O’Toole as the lead anchors is hands
down better than anything that the States could have put together. You can
blame Dick Ebersol on the one.

Toward the end of our time together Dave and I took a
leisure day and drove south down to the States to take in something that I had
never had a chance to experience: the National Baseball Hall of Fame &
Museum in Cooperstown, New York.

We combed every inch of the three
story building and even met up with one of the museum’s historians to set up a
possible second so that we could go through the archives to check out all the
Expos stuff that wasn’t on display. That meeting altogether was interesting
because it ended with him saying that I should submit photos of my tattoos to
get added to the collection. It’s been a year-and-a-half and I still haven’t
done it. Not because I don’t want to, but because it’s not finished. After our
tour we took to the street to do some shopping. I of course bought a few hats
at one of my favorite shops I routinely purchase from online, Mickey’s Place.

All in all, we had a great time. There are very few people
in my life who I could have shared that experience with on the same level, and
Dave is certainly one of those people.

The last days I was able to enjoy in Montreal ended on the best note possible. I
made my last in studio appearance on The Kaufman Show along with Nick Dika
(@NickDika), the bass player for The Arkells and Brad Ferguson (@LeftOffBase),
a tour manager and sound engineer who I befriended through Dave and Nick. Brad
I wrote about in my Buffalo Bisons post on June 24th as we happened
to be at the same game while I was on my New Era trip.

Me, Dave, Brad, Nick

The reason why the four
of us were together that night was because we were heading the US the next day
to catch the Texas Rangers play the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park, which turned
out to be Nick’s and my first Fenway experience. So, like the responsible
people that we are, we hit a bar and got thoroughly toasty on my final night in
Canada.

As luck would have it my friend Tarn MacArthur, a graduate
student at the University of Oregon from Montreal,
happened to be visiting home on the same night.

Seriously, I couldn’t have had a better experience.

We packed up Dave’s car the next morning and drove over to
his mother’s place to borrow her SUV for the trip. Dave and Nick were the only
two driving back into Canada
as Brad was catching a flight out of Boston and
I was meeting up with my good friend Neil Beschle at Fenway to which I would be
crashing with him in Worchester,
Massachusetts for the next week.
When we got to Dave’s mom’s place I helped load all of our belongings into the
back while Dave talked to his mom and gave her his car keys for the duration.
Before we left his mom made mention to one of us forgetting a sleeping bag;
however, none of us actually had a sleeping bag so we dismissed it. Little did
I know, this moment would come to bite me in the ass hard. But… that story will
wait for another post.

Based on my previous two trips to Canada, this particular trip was
obviously a million times better. But on a grand scale of life accomplishments,
this trip ranks in the top-10. I’ve always done what I could to get out and
explore the world and all the people that I met along the way to make it
possible are the sole reason why my time up north was so praiseworthy. Canada has
produced some fine people, and Dave and Dave are certainly two of the best I
have the honor of calling my friends.

On an additional note, as long as I can make it, Dave
Kaufman scored me a ticket to the second game of the Blue Jays versus the New
York Mets exhibition games at Olympic Stadium. I can finally now make that
dream of seeing big league baseball at the Big O a reality. Thank you so much
Dave.

And now, the hat…

This cap has been a fixture of the Canadian World Baseball
Classic Team since the first tournament in 2006. I had been meaning to pick it
up for a number of years, but kept letting it slide until my trip to Buffalo. Derick Chartrand
(@lekid26), is one of the #CrewEra13 members who was invited to Buffalo as part of the
New Era Fan Appreciation event. Derick is from Montreal and had never left the country, let
alone flown on an airplane until that trip. A fellow die-hard Expos fan, we
became friends very fast, much like the rest of the group with one another, but
with Derick we had a little bit tighter of a bond because of the Expos fanship.

When the time came for us to go on a shopping spree in the Flagship Store I
found myself a little befuddled on what caps to get with so many options to
choose from. Naturally, Derick suggested the Canadian WBC cap. I didn’t have a
good reason not to get it, so… I locked it up, and have very happy with the
decision since. All that was left to do was come up with some numbers.

4- Pete Orr was born in Richmond Hill,
Ontario, attended high school Newmarket
and has the distinction of being the only player to appear on the roster for
all three times Canada
has played in the WBC. Orr attended Galveston Community College in Galveston,
Texas and was a 39th round draft pick of the Rangers in 1998 (1187th overall),
spending one year there before signing with the Atlanta Braves on July 3, 1999.

Orr spent his first professional season with Short-Season Jamestown
Jammers of the New York-Penn League in 2000, hitting .242 with two homers, 15
RBIs and 40 runs scored in 69 games. He hit .233 with four homers, 23 RBIs and
38 runs scored in 92 games with the Advanced-A Myrtle Beach Pelicans of the Carolina
League in 2001. In 2002 he spent most of the season with the Double-A Greenville
Braves of the Southern League, hitting .249 with two homers, 36 RBIs and 36
runs scored in 89 games. He also hit .392 with eight RBIs in 17 games with Myrtle Beach. Orr spent
the 2003 season with AA Greenville, batting .226 with two homers and 31 RBIs in
98 games. He was named a Southern League Baseball America AA All-Star. He
established career highs in average, .320, hits, 147, doubles, 16, triples, 10,
stolen bases, 24 and runs scored 69. His .320 batting average and 24 stolen
bases led the AAA Richmond Braves in 2004. He was selected to play in the International
League All-Star game. He was named International League April Player of the
Month, posting a .381 batting average with four doubles, one triple and five
RBIs. He ranked fifth in the IL and fourth among Braves Minor Leaguers in
average, tied second in the IL and led Braves Minor Leaguers in triples, tied
for sixth in the IL and led Braves Minor Leaguers in hits and tied for seventh
among Braves Minor Leaguers in stolen bases. Orr won the Bill Lucas Award as
the player who best represents the Braves organization on and off the field by
the 400 Club. He was also part of Team Canada who finished in fourth place
at the 2004 Summer Olympics.

Orr made his Major League debut for the Braves on April 5, 2005.
He proved to be a versatile player, playing second base, third base, and
various outfield positions during the 2005 season. Orr was optioned to AAA Richmond
on July 5, 2007, when the Braves called up Jo-Jo Reyes from Triple-A Richmond
to make his Major League debut. He was brought up again on August 27. He was
designated for assignment by the Braves on November 20, 2007, and was released
on November 28, 2007.

In December 2007, Orr signed a minor league contract with
the Washington Nationals and on June 21, 2008, his contract was selected by the
Nationals along with right-handed pitcher Steven Shell. On October 30, 2008,
Orr rejected his assignment to AAA and became a free agent. However, he
returned to the team two weeks later, signing a minor league deal, playing with
the Syracuse Chiefs in the International League, with a chance to earn a spot
on the team in the spring.

On November 11, 2010, Orr signed with the Philadelphia
Phillies. During spring training play, he led the major leagues in triples,
with 5, subsequently becoming a member of the team's Opening Day roster. After
spending the 2011 season with both the Phillies and the Lehigh Valley IronPigs,
their AAA affiliate, he became a free agent on October 18. On November 3, Orr
re-signed a minor league contract with the Phillies, receiving an invite to
spring training. He was again included on the team's Opening Day roster at the
onset of the 2012 season.

11- Arguably one of the greatest names in baseball history,
Stubby Clapp is a hitting coach with the Advanced-A Dunedin Blue Jays and is a
former player who was a member of the 2006 and 2009 WBC teams and the 2004
Olympic team. He played for 11 years, most notably within the St. Louis
Cardinals organization, including a brief stint in the Majors with the
Cardinals. In his native Canada,
he is best remembered for his performance at the 1999 Pan American Games in Winnipeg, where he slapped a bases-loaded single in the
11th inning to beat a more experienced U.S.
team and put Canada
in the semifinals. Canada
eventually won bronze medal. Clapp graduated from Texas Tech University, where he played for the Red
Raiders baseball team. He still holds (or shares) the Red Raiders' records for
triples in a season (eight), runs in game (five, three times), strikeouts in a
game (four) and walks in a season (66), both set during the 1996 season. He was
drafted by the Cardinals in the 36th round (1,058th overall) of 1996 amateur
entry draft. In 1998, when playing for the AA Arkansas Travelers he led the
league with 86 walks and 139 games played. He remains popular among Travelers
fans to this day.

In 2000, he led the AAA Memphis Redbirds with 138 hits, 89
runs, 80 walks, eight triples, and six sacrifice hits. He became a popular
figure in the City of Memphis
during his four-year stint (1999-2002). He was often referred to as the
"Mayor of Memphis." During the 2002 season, the 5-foot-8 Clapp was
featured on a growth chart for kids, sponsored by a Memphis-area medical group.
In 2009, he was named one of the Memphis
"Athletes of the Decade." In 2010, the club had "Ode to Clapping
Night," which included giving away Clapp bobbleheads. In 911 minor league
games, Clapp had a .270 batting average, 48 home runs, 50 triples, 196 doubles,
365 RBI, and 83 steals. Clapp also pitched in three games. In 2.1 innings,
Clapp has given up two hits and no earned runs.

His Major League career only lasted 23 games for the
Cardinals in 2001 in which he hit right at the Mendoza line (.200) with five hits total, two
of which were doubles and he only batted in one run. On April 21, 2007, Clapp's
jersey #10 was the first number ever retired by the Redbirds. This is
commemorated by a painted "10" on the wall above the Redbirds'
bullpen at AutoZone
Park. He is second
all-time for the Memphis Redbirds for games played (425) and hits (418).

Clapp began his coaching career as a hitting coach for the Lexington
Legends, the Houston Astros Class-A team in the South Atlantic League. He came
out of retirement to represent Canada
at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In November 2010, Clapp became the hitting coach
for the Corpus Christi Hooks, Houston's AA
affiliate and then managed the Tri-City ValleyCats, another Class-A affiliate
of the Astros, during the 2011 and 2012 seasons before taking his current
position in Dunedin
in January of 2013.

12- If I had to make an assertion on who the greatest
Canadian baseball player of all-time is, you better believe that 10 times out
of 10 I’m rolling with Matt Stairs.

Growing up in Fredericton,
New Brunswick, Stairs showed athletic
ability at an early age, playing Beaver League baseball a year before his age
eligibility and excelling in hockey. After playing Bantam & Midget
baseball, at age 16 and 17, he played for the local Marysville Royals of the New
Brunswick Senior Baseball League and was voted "Rookie of The Year"
in 1984 and the league's Most Valuable Player in 1985. He was also named Nova
Scotia Senior Baseball League MVP in 1987 and '88 while playing for the
Fredericton Schooners. He attended the National Baseball Institute (NBI) in Vancouver, British Columbia
for one year and played for Canada
at the 1987 World Amateur Championships in Italy where he was named to the
"World All-Star" team. In 1988, he joined the Canadian Junior
National team after graduating from Fredericton
High School. From there
he went on to play for the Canadian Olympic Team at the 1988 Summer Olympics in
Seoul, South Korea. On January 17, 1989,
Stairs was signed as an international free agent by the Expos.

Stairs, in all fairness, was a bit of a journeyman. In fact,
he holds the record for most teams played for as a position player at 12, but
technically 13 as he played for the Expos and the Nationals at different stages
of his career. Octavio Dotel holds the record for pitchers at 13 as well. For
19 seasons Stairs “turned many cloaks” with the Expos (1992-1993), Chunichi
Dragons of the Japanese League (1994), Red Sox (1995), Athletics (1996-2000),
Chicago Cubs (2001), Milwaukee Brewers (2002), Pittsburgh Pirates (2003),
Kansas City Royals (2004-2006), Rangers (2006), Tigers (2006), Blue Jays
(2007-2008), Phillies (2008-2009), San Diego Padres (2010) and the Nationals
(2011).

I’ll be honest, I don’t remember too much from his time with
the Expos as I was nine and 10-years-old, but I’ll never forget him crushing
dingers with the Athletics. His longest stint with any team happened to come in
Oakland when he
played in 632 games in five seasons. He hit .268 with 122 home runs and 385
RBI. Tow of those seasons (1998 and 1999) featured him hitting 26 home runs and
106 RBI and 38 home runs with 102 RBI respectively. Both the top home runs and
RBI totals are career highs. Stairs finished 17th overall for the
American League MVP in 1999. In his July 5, 1996 debut with Oakland, Stairs tied a major league record
with six runs batted in during one inning. That first inning performance
included a grand slam and a two-run single. This was subsequently broken by
Fernando Tatis on April 23, 1999. The only reason why Stairs never stayed with
the Athletics is due to cost-cutting. I know, nothing about that is surprising.
What is fortunate for Stairs is that he eventually bounced around to a team at
the most ideal time, the Phillies in 2008 when they won the World Series. It
would be the only time that Stairs would get a ring let alone be on a team in
the World Series.

When he retired in 2011 he had a .263 average, 265 home runs
and 897 RBI and a World Series and the record for most pinch hit home runs (23)
to his name. He was also a member of the 2006 and 2009 World Baseball Classic
team, one of only a small handful of guys to be on multiple teams on top of
having played in the Olympics in 1988. Noted baseball analysts Bill James and Joe
Posnanski have theorized that Stairs is probably a far more talented hitter
than his career stats suggest. Stairs didn't have 500 plate appearances until
age 29, at which point he recorded 100 RBI seasons and an adjusted OPS of over
130 two years in a row- and never saw 500 at-bats again. James contends,
"You put him in the right park, right position early in his career ...
he's going to hit a LOT of bombs."
Possibly, Posnanski contends, enough to be have been worthy of Hall of Fame
consideration.

About Me

My name is Benjamin Christensen and I am a recent graduate of University of Oregon in Eugene. I have two Bachelor's Degrees in News/Editorial Journalism and Magazine Journalism with a minor in English. I've been writing ever since I was a kid, mostly doing creative writing, but I've been going strong since I was 15 when I was able to land an interview with Grant Hill of the Detroit Pistons for the high school newspaper I was working for in Bakersfield, California. From that moment of awesomeness I knew that doing something that involved writing and sports was my way in life.
I am probably best known for being a cast member of Season 2 of the MLB Fan Cave. You know, the awesomely bearded guy with all the tattoos. I have an in depth knowledge and perspective on baseball and love to immerse myself into the culture of the game with the fans, players and newcomers.